Hormel Foods moved higher after the packaged foods company said its earnings rose 18 percent, benefiting from its recent purchase of Skippy peanut butter. While earnings were a penny below street estimates, it did reaffirm fiscal 2014 guidance.

DirecTV rose as earnings and revenue beat street forecasts. It also announced a new $3.5 billion share buyback program. But it did say it added few subscribers in the U-S and Latin America as competition intensified.

Blackhawk Network Holdings, the gift card unit of Safeway that was spun into its own publicly traded company, fell after the grocery chain said it would distribute the remaining 37.8 million shares of the company that it owns to Safeway shareholders.

Onconova Therapeutics lost ground on 6 times its normal trading volume after the biotech said its myelodysplastic syndrome treatment failed a late stage clinical trial. Its market cap falling to $168 million.